Monday, February 8, 2010

The Budweiser bull

Watching the Superbowl yesterday, one of my favorite commercials was definitely Budweiser's commercial portraying a friendship between a Clydesdale horse and a bull. The Clydesdale and the bull apparently run next to each other when the bull is very young, then again 3 years later -- this time the bull has grown substantially, has huge horns (appears to be a longhorn) and plows through the fence (which does not appear to bother the horses). People around me also liked it and I saw on the news this morning that it was perhaps the most well liked commercial by the public in general.

But I couldn't help also feel as I watched the commercial, and even more after seeing the general public's response, how sad it was. We read these books as children about cows roaming around pastures with roses all around and are inundated with similar images all the time -- I saw the pilot of This American Life from Showtime the other day and it included a story about a bull who napped in the son on the front lawn of his owner's house all day -- or how about the California cheese commercials where we get the image of these happy cows roaming the pastures in beautiful sunny California weather and we're told that better cheese comes from happier cows. On the other hand reliable evidence indicates that literally 99 PERCENT of all animals on farms in the United States are confined in so called factory farming system where they receive no natural light or access to pasture for the vast majority of their life -- and I could go on and on but is it really necessary?

Obviously bulls do not usually become friends with Clydesdales, and so we know this is fiction, but that's the extent most people will write off as silly in their head. To me, far sillier is the notion that bulls or any cow or other animal used in the production of edible meat lives in humane conditions. We know this is not true. It is overwhelmingly well documented and accepted. It seems to be one thing to just keep from thinking about how these animals are treated, but it's completely another to make little plays about how their lives are the opposite of reality and then to sit around and chuckle at them. Maybe one day we'll wise up and revise our flawed system enough so I can watch that commercial and not feel guilty

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